allies and enemies 02 - rogues (5 page)

“Hmm…green eyes. Nice.” He tilted his head. “Rare color for a Eugenes. Brought some embarrassment, I’m sure. Not the purest line. Maybe a little back-birth world, way out in the raggedy bits. Some peasant Kindred. Maybe a Last Daughter they couldn’t marry off.”

He slid one of her sleeves down. “No bonding brands on your arms. So they shipped you off to Fleet then. And now look at you…all the way out in my little corner of the black, all lost like.”

She swallowed. A chance encounter with this man and he struck closer to the truth than anyone would have guessed. Uncle had altered Erelah and her brother in many ways; eye color had been the least of his concerns. His main objective had been to skew their genetics in order to hide their true nature as Humans and not Eugenes. As a child, she had begged Uncle to have her eyes fixed.
But child,
he would say, smiling down at her,
there is nothing broken.

“That it?” Korbyn pouted in mock sympathy. “Would the grand matron of your Kindred even pay to get you back?”

He reached out to touch her chin. She jerked back, fearful of what visions the Sight would wring from him.

“Don’t,” she hissed. “Please don’t.”

He snorted. Undaunted, he traced the unraveling plait of her hair. He leaned closer. “I ain’t got the rot, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

She could try to use the brutal invasion of the Sight on him—a sight-jack—to get him to let her go. It had worked with Maynard. To do that, she needed his touch, and she didn’t know if she had the strength for that.

Everything felt so heavy, as if the a-grav had doubled. Her very spine was brittle with fatigue. Sight-jacking meant feeling herself fall away and slipping under his skin. It meant becoming him, if only for a brief moment. Each time she used it, she left a little bit of herself behind.

Too weak. I couldn’t withstand it.

“Just don’t touch me,” she said.

“I can’t touch the lady. Too nice for Asher Korbyn.” He mimicked a Eugenes accent. “Got news for you, sister. You’re far gone from Origin. This place eats everything. Even lost little girls like you. Right now I’m the closest thing you got to a friend out here, sweetling.”

“Here? Where’s here?”

Korbyn reached above her, his face looming closer. She shrank back. There was a clank of metal and the tension on her restraints lessened.

“You really don’t know. Do you?” There was an incongruous flicker of something in his deep maroon gaze. She might have mistaken it for pity.

Maroon, like a Binait skin slave’s. Far from a purebred Eugenes himself.

Although her wrists remained bound, she could now lower her arms. She gasped at the relief in her shoulders. Her legs were dead things. She staggered and almost fell.

He gripped her arm, steadying her.

“Look.” She licked her lips. “Just let me go. This is—”

“This is business.” His arrogance reappeared like a shield. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

Eyes narrowed, he met her gaze. “You’re trouble. I can see that from where I stand. That’s all I need to know. I don’t want to hear your story, little girl. The Reaches are full of little tragedies like yours.”

The Reaches.

A bleak hopelessness spread through her. She had somehow ended up here, on the other side of the Known Worlds from where she’d last been conscious: the dead station and her attempt to destroy the
Questic
.

How could that even be?

Then I am truly lost.

She allowed herself to sag.

“So that leads us back to where we started. Your name.”

Erelah was suddenly exhausted beyond caring. Her body ached and trembled, bones hurting as if they had been ground to mulch.

Even if I could find a means to get away, how could I navigate out of the Reaches?

Perhaps I am not meant to
.

He dipped his chin to peer into her face. “All I’m asking for is a name. Just your name.”

“Tilley,” she croaked, eyes downcast. “My name’s Tilley…Valen.”

The lie bubbled out of her, unbidden, a spark of self-preservation that Erelah would hesitate to credit to herself. It was the Tyron-voice again.

The thick fingers of his right hand played an impatient staccato against his thigh, where the bone hilt of a curved blade rested.

“I doubt it.” He straightened. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a bad liar?”

“Actually yes,” she rasped.

He clamped a chummy hand down on her shoulder. “Guess I have to call you something.”

He pulled her forward and looped his arm under hers as her legs attempted to fold. She felt herself righted as if she weighed nothing.

“Easy.” His voice was a rough whisper. “Word of advice…
Tilley
. You don’t want to look weak in front of my crewies. Makes my job harder to keep them off you.”

Erelah pulled away.

What sort of game was he playing?

Perhaps he guessed her thoughts. He shrugged. “Just evening the odds. Come on.” He jerked his chin.

She wobbled alongside him. The smooth deck plates underfoot transitioned to toothed metal grating that chewed her feet.

“Why’d you take my boots?”

“Trel fancied ‘em.”

She frowned up at him.

“What? Would you prefer he’d taken something else?”

She shuddered. “No.”

They entered a corridor made narrow by stacks of haphazardly piled crates with markings that suggested all manner of origins. Only one or two held writing she could decipher. She tried her best to remember their route as they moved through the ship. That Tyron-voice told her to count doorways, note landmarks. The walls blurred. She lost count.

At another intersection, they passed a torn-out panel. Three Zenti huddled around it, dodging showers of sparks as they worked. They measured her with hungry eyes. Self-consciously she drew herself up, chin jutting.
Act as if they are not there.
Beneath me.

Despite her pretense, unease coiled around her stomach.

Korbyn’s massive hand on her upper arm tightened, nearly pulling her off her feet.

“Don’t get any ideas.” His tone was coarse, surly. Something about it seemed exaggerated to her. “I know you’re counting steps, doorways.”

He was putting on a show for them as well. Perhaps he did not command the authority he pretended. The notion pumped adrenaline into her blood. This man was the only thing standing between her and certain violation.

They stopped before a closed hatch. Korbyn leaned over a keypad lock, obscuring her view. She counted the beeps of the entry code.

Four digits. Assuming a standard eight-number template and permitting for repeated digits that meant 4,096 probable combinations. Erelah doubted she would have the time to try them all.

He kicked the door open with a clang. She jumped.

“Ladies first.” He jerked his chin at the pitch-black space beyond.

She dug her heels into the deck, wincing at the pain in her bare feet. “What is this?”

“Accommodations, your highness. Nothing but the best.”

Her heart squeezed. “No. It’s
dark
.”

He frowned. “Space is dark. Yet that didn’t seem to stave you.”

“You don’t understand.” Erelah swallowed. The void beyond the metal hull of the ship was
not
the same. This was being shut in with darkness where terrible things dwelt—a childhood fear Tristic had used for her torment.

Korbyn growled. Rolling his eyes, he reached inside the doorway. A dull amber light illuminated a modestly sized room. There was an unmade bunk, bedclothes in a jumbled knot. Bits of paper plastered the walls, images of naked and half-naked females in all manner of explicit poses. Untidy bundles of clothes dotted the deck, along with empty scorch-rum bottles.

This was
his
room. The
jin-ji’s
lair.

“Better?” He muscled her over the threshold.

Not really.
Erelah froze with her bound wrists pulled up to her chest, terrified to touch anything.

“My valet has the day off.” He backed into the hall. The door clanged shut.

She heard muted off-key beeps of the lock.

Erelah sank to her knees. Helplessness threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to collapse and sob until her throat was raw.

The Tyron-voice was stronger than ever.

You are not beaten. Not as long as you draw breath. There is work to do.

Erelah rose from the floor on legs that seemed to belong to someone far stronger.

8

“She taste as sweet as she looks, Korbyn?” Spivey ventured.

“Tastes of healthy payday, brother.” He smirked, keeping his secrets. “And…yes, very sweet.”

The girl was his boon as
jin-ji
. Best to carry on as if he’d made expected use of her. In truth, he’d never considered it. Of course, it did not mean the rest of his clan were not pining to do it.

Spivey snorted, flexing his hand. A bloody half-moon was left of the girl’s bite. “That little queenie is in need of good teachin’. Hope she’s worth the risk in temptin’ Ix.”

“Lucien will never know we were here,” he snarled with sudden ferocity, leaning over Spivey. Zenti were like any other pack animal. It was important to let them know who was alpha.

“Maybe you make fair and grant all us a taste of that little pale thing.”

“She’s
mine
. My boon.”

Although Spivey was considered tall for a Zenti, he was a full head shorter than Asher. Spivey held a particular dislike for him that went beyond their typical distrust of non-Zenti. It was no secret that Spivey believed Asher held himself as his better. In truth, he did. Spivey had been a vile beast when they first met. Asher had been forced to give him licks that rounded his edges, but the beasty was still in there, hiding, waiting for his chance to attack.

“Some says you’ve forgotten our coda,” Spivey said. “You’re not Zenti, but you took on clan-law when you vowed as
jin-ji
and set us against Ix. Some of our brothers see you as setting your own—”

“I know coda. I’ll see to your share,” Asher returned. “The woman’s not to be touched. I’m
jin-ji
and I give law.”

Their ship, the
Nyxa’s Mercy,
had been forced deeper into the buffer region of Ix-controlled territory and the Splitdawn Guild. A move that was less likely to get them any more targets, save the occasional disabled freighter or scaved-out cruiser. Things on the ship were tense, to put it mildly. In-fighting, common by Zenti standards, seemed more frequent. Things were not getting dire…yet.

“Strange things in the works in finding that ship.” Spivey moved out of his reach. “It’s all off in the black on its own. No weapons to it. No carrier. No base. All new tech. Vessel that small can’t run velos. Not that there’s a flexer out this way worth use.”

Asher picked through the bundles of wires and nodes on the counter, listening to Spivey tell him things he already knew as he nodded absently.

Then Spivey prodded: “Heard you use her speaks. Is there something that we all have want to know,
jin-ji
?”

“Spivey, you challenging me?” The bastard had been eavesdropping and had heard him use High Eugenes with the girl. Not good. His second was definitely getting bricky. It was a matter of when, not
if
, when it came to another member of the crew coming to challenge him. He was vaguely surprised it’d taken this long.

“Korbyn,” Spivey stretched a nervous smile. “There’s no call for that, brother. You’re
jin-ji
, same as ever. Just worry on your brainbox.”

“My thinking is just fine.”

“A relief, brother.” He might as well have rolled onto his back, belly up.

“Right.” Asher was unconvinced.

He regarded a wasted stack of components strewn across the table with a surge of annoyance. A mishmash of service nodes and filaments from the stryker littered the surface. They’d better put everything back the way they found it.

“The stryker. What did you find?”

“That metal beast keeps its secrets.” Spivey shook his head, a notably unZenti habit that spoke of his time spent with a renegade
jin-ji
. “The ship is a worry. There was great power in its inner tinkering. The work is vast from my conjuring.”

“How long?”

“It’s no question of time. It’s a question of
if at all
,” Spivey confessed. “The queenie holds all the tiles. Without her the stryker is pretty silver scrap.”

The vessel, as he’d suspected, was useless without her cooperation.

That led Asher back to his original question from the moment he’d first glimpsed the girl.
Who is she?
He thumbed through the screens of useless data lines on the handheld, feeling Spivey’s scrutiny.

“There’s an auxiliary file in the FDR. Is there an ident for the pilot?”

“All lines of heavy-learnin’ nonsense. Reckon its brains got scrambled when the files were copied.” Spivey studied the screens on the handheld, his lip thrust out under the effort of concentration. Asher had taught him some Regimental. His ability to read Common was not much better. With a disgusted grunt, Spivey tossed the handheld back to the bench.

Asher glanced at the document and shrugged into Spivey’s expectant gaze. “Nothing helpful.”

Spivey watched him in a measuring silence.

“Keep working.” He moved to the hatch.

“Bad
ju
, having a female onship,” Spivey called after him.

“Spivey, that woman is bad luck no matter where she is.”

The girl had probably ransacked his quarters by now. Not that there was much in there worthwhile. You learned to be creative with hiding spaces when you lived on a ship full of Zenti. He had to question her, something he did not relish. Torture was out. It stood against his nature, regardless of the exterior he presented for the Zenti. That meant he needed leverage, something to trade her.

He paused. “Where’s Tril?”

9